Can I get a straight answer regarding the shortcode editor?

Support
#1

Dear support,
Let me be very blunt.
Will the shortcode buttons be reinstated and the text editor fixed, or will this be the way it will be from now on?
I must say, it is very, very, very slow to use and it appears that the latest updates have been rushed and incomplete. It reminds me of ms office, the ribbon rubbish and windows 8, here we go again.
Should I hang on or look for a better answer?
Again, I resend the previous questions…

Best regards
Eric

Sneakyflea Dec '17
Hi,
Firstly, I do love x theme, however, the latest developments have failed developers.
The introduction of the V2 elements should be an addition and not affect the functionality of the Classic Elements, yet the existing “Insert Shortcodes” and “Insert Media Object” from within a text block have been removed and have rendered Cornerstone cumbersome, heavy and unworkable…
Please make the coding editor (the single most important component) with unicode text, colourful language highlights and similar to “Notepad ++” with functional search and replace options.
Repair the existing “Insert Shortcodes”, “Insert Media Object” and additional icons, to work within a text block as a configurable work-area.
FORGET about a rich text editor, it breaks code and is NEVER needed, there is a preview window for that (which still needs work and should preview all, including JavaScript).
Until the changes, I suggest that EVERYONE remain on version 1.1.1 or find another solution until the X THEME developers restore functionality.
… and by the way, enabling the classic elements as suggested WILL NOT help at all.
basantaStaff Dec '17
Hi There,
Thanks for giving us the valuable suggestion. We always respect our customer feedback/suggestion and review it for the future development roadmap.
I will pass this suggestions to our development team, they will definitely review it.
We appreciates your feedback and time.
Thanks
mattStaff Dec '17
Hi,
My name is Matt and I’m part of our leadership team here. Your comments have been brought to my attention so I wanted to respond personally. Firstly, thank you for the comments, we really do value customer feedback, positive or otherwise. Just so that you know, we have a product update that we are due to start beta testing and then release in the near future, and once that is out of the way, we will be ceasing any product development in order thoroughly review a number of things relating to the user experience and workflow, along the lines that you have suggested.
Thanks again, and have a great day.
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#3

I can’t confirm right now if we are going to put an “Add Media” button in the plain text editor. I can confirm that the shortcode generator will not be coming back to the builders. From the settings in the dashboard you can enable it to show in the WordPress text editor. It only works for classic elements because shortcode attributes can’t be used to achieve the level of dynamic styling available with V2 elements.

We will be leaving the rich text mode based on TinyMCE because many people like it and are used to it. There is a known issue where if you switch back and forth between the modes it reformats your plain text and adds <p> tags. This is something we’ll be investigating for the next release cycle.

#4

Wow now that is amazing…
You guys are ruining your product and developing for the very basic of users.
The shortcode button within the text editor made coding faster, now because it is beyond the capabilities of your programming staff, everyone suffers. You are not helping your clients but ensuring that their workflow is slowed with no chance of improvement.
V 1.1.0 is the only choice atm.
I will let everyone know what you have said and send a copy of this.
Please send this message to your bosses to see if this is in fact their view …

#5

I’m sorry you’re frustrated about this, and it certainly isn’t our intention to make anything harder to use. Let me provide a bit more context.

One of the biggest requests we received over and over again after Cornerstone first launched was to add more styling options. The only way we could do that in the current system was by adding inline style attributes. We already had complaints that we used these for margin, padding, and other styles.

We set out to build what is now our V2 element system which allows us to generate dynamic CSS from the element controls. Anything possible in CSS is now on the table.

It’s not that things are “beyond our capabilities” but the vehicle of a shortcode itself is an impractical way to output a V2 element. I’m sure if we put our minds to it we could figure it out, but we’d be adding more complications along the way. We also already know this would introduce performance issues. A standalone generated element can’t benefit from it’s styles being combined with the rest of the page. Combined with how involved this in terms of development time, we don’t have strong reasons for exploring that path any further.

From what we’ve observed, the shortcode generator has become less and less used in favor of just building pages. It was a fantastic resource when it was first released (before we had a front end editor) but in terms of usability we’ve found more and more people are just building by dragging elements into their page and arranging them as needed.

If you don’t mind talking this through a bit further I have a few questions:

  1. Have you tried V2 elements at all?
  2. Can you provide some specific examples of how you would use the shortcode generator from inside the builder?
  3. What end results have you observed only being possible by using the shortcode generator rather than other features?

We’re certainly open to hearing ideas, but I’d rather examine in what ways this has become a pain point rather than jumping to conclusions on what will fix it. There might be another way to solve what you’re trying to solve using the shortcode generator, or we (Themeco Developers) might get a better understanding of the problem at hand rather than how we’ve been perceiving it.

#6

Hello again,
The shortcode editor was the ONLY advantage with your builder and I believe that you will lose a great number of developers as a result. What is needed is improvement to the editor as the centre piece and not as an extra, as that is a mistake. Additionally, repairing the editor is way more important than creating fluffy V2 elements were not essential, resource hungry and pointless. I believe that if this is the path that your company chooses, then, the Beaver Builder, Elementor and Divi of the world will certainly pass you.

  1. Yes, I have tried the elements and I have forced myself to create a fresh site with it, pointless.

  2. The power of Cornerstone was in the ability to build whilst in a text editor, adding shortcodes only to use the HTML, then re-editing and customise. The buttons that your guys detested was the only things that made the editor palatable. I am not alone, as no one I know feels the way that you indicate.

  3. Speed and editability, without constraint, is the only thing that matters. If there is to be V2 elements, fine, but it should never replace function and that is my main point.

My principal sites on PRO alone are 45GB in size and contain over 100 million words and just the shear waste of time and opening more windows to edit is just ridiculous, let alone to be forced to slow my development.

Without malice or pressure, it appears that there may be no choice but for me and many of my friends and my associates to leave on mass, as you, Alexander, have told me that this will not be fixed.

Till then, I will stay on V1.1.0 until we move.

#7

I’m sorry, I’m not following how you’re opening more windows. What do you mean by that specifically?

#8

There are two things:

Firstly, the ‘Legacy Shortcode Generator’ and the ‘add media’ buttons can only be accessed external to cornerstone. So, the only option to view the html shortcode is to run another browser instance, copy the html, then paste (at times into notepad++, edit then save) in cornerstone.

Secondly, I always create a new chrome browser instance to isolate and protect the work I am doing because cornerstone is not to be trusted. I then do my work on the page blog or portfolio, save then close.

Obviously, this all takes time, which is ridiculous and all because of two buttons.

I and many others are concerned that the goal posts are continually shifting and none of us trust the updates. How can we be guaranteed of reliability when the platform continually changes?

Lastly, I am simply disappointed.

#9

This is the first time I’ve heard this workflow described. When I asked those questions I was trying to engage in understanding your motivations for using the shortcode generator. There might be better workflows we can advise but it sounds like you just in general have reluctance towards any of the newer features.

V2 elements are the culmination of months of user feedback and discussions with our customers. They will continue to be a focus for us moving forward as you can see with the latest Template Manager and Design Cloud update. If you feel like V2 elements are pointless and if you feel cornerstone is not to be trusted, maybe Pro isn’t the tool for you. If you at all feel this way we would encourage you to explore some other options. It never hurts to know what’s available to you.

#10

Alexander,

Firstly, let’s put everything into context. I trust cornerstone up to V1.1.0 and I do like the idea of the V2 elements, global elements and the template management, but not at the cost of performance or reliability. It appears that the PRO developers are closing access to the back end to cater for new developers to drag and drop. The problem then becomes glaringly apparent for those editing existing content and of whom prefer to include the shortcodes from within the text editor. Remember, ACF Pro and a host of other plugins are used in conjunction with your shortcodes (example attached).

It is always good practice to edit the way I do to preserve the integrity of the workflow and by no way diminishes the achievements of the PRO developers.

All I asked, was whether there was support for this method, using the text editor then including additional functionality with the shortcodes.

As for your questions, they are leading and ignore my questions.

As I understand it and by your admission, the PRO Developers will not fix this capability going forward, thereby making it painful to all that have large existing content or whom develop this way. Just so this is clear, the workflow stops because copying the whole text block with cornerstone content within it, is now not an option, as with my attached sample code.

As far as my options and to what I have been led to believe, I have no guarantees for future developments, as text mode, will soon be made extinct by theme.co, which leaves me with no option, but to redevelop my 45GB of content.

Alexander, before you pass this letter on to the directors and management, please be aware that this is a licensing issue and I, as your licensee, am liable for your development discretion, your mistakes are my mistakes, your incompetence is my incompetence and the functionality, or change thereof, is as much your responsibility as it is mine.

Best regards …

Eric …

I have linked the text file (http://www.writersreserve.com/wp-content/uploads/ACF-Example.txt)

#11

Hi there,

Thank you for your input. We will certainly convey the message to the management.

#12

Thank you, I would very much appreciate that.

#15

Hi Eric,

I’m sorry for not mentioning it earlier, but I’m one of the lead developers on Pro so you are in fact speaking with management already.

Thank you for the additional information. That text file you sent is incredibly helpful and gives me a more clear understanding of your workflow and how these changes have effected you. It’s also good to know you’re using ACF Pro. I did some testing and discovered a bug where ACF doesn’t work properly with V2 elements. This has been fixed for the next release.

I have not ignored your questions. My first post was to the point and addressed your questions as direct as possible as you requested. I was clear that the intent of my questions was to explore other directions because it is unlikely we will bring back the shortcode generator inside the content builder. To recap, the “Add Media” button is still a possibility, but not something we’ve decided on yet.

Text mode is not going away. There will always be a plain text editing mode. There just won’t be a way to automatically generate shortcodes. Now that the template manager is out, the next major release will be focused on stability, performance, and working through a good deal of UX feedback we’ve received. I’ve documented your feedback in the appropriate places so it can be considered when we start working on the text editor again. If you have a “wishlist” so to speak of ways the text editing mode could be improved, feel free to add that here and I’ll include it in our notes. I can’t guarantee it will be acted on, but I do appreciate how you represent users who heavily use that mode instead of the visual building features.

I understand your primary concern is that you have so much existing content and it’s not feasible to update all of that to a new format. The following may not be very helpful, but I wanted to include a few notes on how building out future content could be made easier with newer features of the tool:

  • Responsive Typography in Theme Options will allow you to set font sizes for each breakpoint. This would reduce the text content you manage as you wouldn’t need to have duplicate content for each screen size. It would also improve your SEO because you wouldn’t have duplicate heading tags.
  • The V2 Accordion element allows you to directly set an image as the icon. It can even rotate if you want.
  • Combined with ACF, the new Global Blocks feature could be used to create reusable collections of elements that are populated by ACF fields. For example, you could place a headline, text, and gap element together fully styled how you need them and with ACF tags as the content. If this Global Block is placed on a page (or inside an accordion) it will populate from the page’s custom fields. This could help establish some reusable patterns and result in less content.
#16

Hello Alexander,

Thank you for your honesty, yet it would be remiss of myself to not let you know my opinions. If I ran the PRO project the way that themeco has, I would kick my own arse until my nose bled. I would never expose my company or those within my employ to that level of risk, let alone my franchisees, licensees or clients. That being said, I do believe in the idea of cornerstone and your latest developments, however, definitely not in the order that has been chosen.

To answer your questions regarding improvements to the text editor, I now believe that the only answer is to restore the original WordPress editor with all Classic and V2 elements set as an appendage, as Gutenberg will take over that role.

Then, I would suggest creating a converter to capture and quarantine all cornerstone and the template data from the SQL record to isolate this data from all pages, portfolios and blogs, including the new Gutenberg blocks. This would allow all users to remove cornerstone and the template without fear of losing data. I will also be building my own converter to protect my data, in preparation for WP5. It also appears that if I want to resolve the text editor problem, I simply have to develop it myself and reinstate the functions that were removed with JavaScript and another database table.

To answer your questions:

I already use responsive typography at 5 breakpoints;
I already set images for my Accordion Elements and use 3D objects; and
I already allow for the export of templates as blocks in V1.1.0.

Additionally, most of my data and renders are processed server-side.

With all this being said, it appears as if there is nothing to say but remain on V1.1.0 until Guttenberg, WP5.0 is released. This should be your main concern.

Good luck with the developments and best regards…

Eric

#17

Thanks Eric, we appreciate the feedback. Gutenburg is definitely on our radar and we’ll be figuring out that integration closer to WordPress 5.0 be released.

#18

Wow, almost a year later and still no usable text editor?

#19

Hi Eric,

Is there something specific you’re referring to by the text editor not being usable?

I was reviewing our conversation and it seems you prefer to always edit in text mode when working with elements. Did you know we added a preference to toggle the default editing mode? You can now ensure it always open to the text mode and never have to see the rich text editor.

#20

Dear Alexander,

I am not trying to be difficult, I am just trying to future proof my main sites as I fear that I will have to change millions of lines of code due to the latest developments of X theme.

My main sites retain version 1.1.0, as I thought it would be prudent to give time and await for the development curve to evolve, however, it appears that nothing will change and that inline editing to include v1 and v2 elements on-the-fly will never be available and that it now modular, without the ability to nest or include the elements within text statements.
Would this be a correct assumption or do I have this wrong.

Best regards…

Eric

BTW: Will ‘ACF Pro’ ever be up to date or would purchasing this separately help speed things up…

#21

Hi @sneakyflea,

I’m adding some thought about this too. The version 1.1.0 is pretty old and any setup dependent on the features of that version will or may fail once you upgrade to latest version. There is always feature gaps when it comes to distant versions. Hence, you’ll have to do some major changes too in order to make them compatible. And it’s true regardless of plugin or theme. There are added backward compatibility to give users time to transition from different versions and features, which are gradually removed to optimize and remove bloated features that are supposed to be deprecated. But since you stayed on 1.1.0 then that’s going to be a major change or maintenance for your site.

And you can still use the standard editor if your work or development flow is based on standard shortcodes. And you can add shortcode to cornerstone text editor manually as well. But again, there is a limitation when it comes to the editor built-in to the cornerstone and it’s been like since the older versions, and that’s to minimize and remove bloat features in simple text editing.

I’m not sure about your last question, are you referring to ACF integration to cornerstone text editor? It’s still not possible, the cornerstone editor is not exactly the same as Wordpress standard editor.

May I know the inline editing feature that you’re referring? Or is it still related to the shortcodes for editor?

Thanks!

#22

Dear Rad,

It is great to hear from you.

Are you comfortable editing in the modern version of cornerstone?

I rely on the editor to include media and shortcodes for elements whilst I am in the editor and I believe that in time, X theme will depreciate the older v1 elements, leaving me with no options and an amazing amount of work to do.

I never asked for exclusive ‘drag and drop’ elements, as I prefer to copy code as one text block, then modify as part of my workflow. As I understand it, this is the problem. I am being forced to slow my activities to cater for this interrupting and slow process.

I am at a loss to see why there is a reluctance to repair, empower and improve the text editor for those who code or simply wish to revisit their work without difficulty?

The ACF comment was regarding the update only and to why we only use older versions and not the latest? Would purchasing the full version with the latest update work or is there conflicts at every step of the development regarding ACF.

In conclusion, I use the latest X theme on a couple of sites, yet have not updated my two main sites due to my concern, as you have confirmed with ‘distant versions’ and ‘major changes too in order to make them compatible’.

Is there any hope and what are my options?

Best regards…

Eric

P.S. Can we replace the Page Builder?

#23

Hi Eric,

Thanks for shedding some more light on your workflow. Hopefully I can provide some clarification and assurance from our perspective.

I rely on the editor to include media and shortcodes for elements whilst I am in the editor and I believe that in time, X theme will depreciate the older v1 elements, leaving me with no options and an amazing amount of work to do.

We will never deprecate those elements. We’re committed to keeping old sites up and running longterm. The last thing we would ever want is to introduce an update that requires extensive work to update a site. This is true of anything we’ve built going back to version 1 of X.

You can still add images - we just moved the button into the TinyMCE toolbar to save space.

What we have been doing however, is introducing new tools and features and making them a more prominent part of the editing experience. So while the pages you’ve build over the years will continue to look the same on the front end, there have certainly been changes like removing the shortcode generator from the visual page building experience (you can still use it in the WordPress post editor if you have the Classic Editor plugin to disable Gutenburg).

I never asked for exclusive ‘drag and drop’ elements, as I prefer to copy code as one text block, then modify as part of my workflow. As I understand it, this is the problem. I am being forced to slow my activities to cater for this interrupting and slow process.

I understand that this workflow is something you’re comfortable with, but it is an increasingly rare workflow these days. The majority of our customers use the drag and drop interfaces and have continuously been asking for ways to build sites without touching any code. If you look at what’s going on in the Theme market there’s a big emphasis on visual builders.

The entire basis for V2 elements (the Cornerstone 2.0 release) was identifying that we needed to provide more customization options per element. A V2 button has 130+ values that can be adjusted using the element controls. This is because you get full styling control to make the button look exactly like you want it to without CSS. It would be incredibly unweildy to do this via shortcodes and overtime it would bloat the database.

I am at a loss to see why there is a reluctance to repair, empower and improve the text editor for those who code or simply wish to revisit their work without difficulty?

I guess I’m still not following what needs to be repaired here. The fundamental difference I’m seeing is that the shortcode generator modal is no longer available directly in the page builder. If you’re just using the Shortcode Generator, you can do this in the WordPress post editor without ever needing to fire up Cornerstone. In that regard, not much has changed since before Cornerstone was released (aside from WP core changes). If you don’t see the button, you can enable it from Cornerstone Settings.

You are more than welcome to replace the page builder with whatever alternative you like. You might even want to explore some other options like WP Bakery’s updated builder (included for free with X). Most builders these days heavily revolve around a visual interface. It might be a good idea to try out some of the latest things available. You’d be looking at a new workflow paradigm so it’d be worth considering the latest versions of Cornerstone as well.

On that note, have you seen any of our updated templating functionality? We’ve seen this to be a great way to speed up making multiple pages with a similar look and feel. In the early days this was done by copy/pasting entire shortcode layouts but the Template Manager is a more elegant solution.

Regarding ACF, the latest version is usually on automatic updates not very long after it’s released. It’s not the same day because we test the updates first to check for conflicts before pushing out an update ourselves. What you might be experiencing is a conflict that happened with older versions that made it say “Update Unavailable”. To get around this, deactivate ACF and click “Check again” on the Dashboard page. there’s almost never a conflict or incompatibility. Purchasing ACF Pro version wouldn’t make a difference because when Pro is active we disable their automatic updater - otherwise X and Pro customers would be required to enter a ACF license to get updates.